


Blanketed

by grainjew



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Gen, Loyalty, for once i seriously wasn't intending on writing loyalty content but it... happened anyways, frostbite has the personality of a large friendly dog, i love him so much, ice core nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 12:56:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21299816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grainjew/pseuds/grainjew
Summary: Danny doesn't understand why Frostbite is so nice to him. Frostbite just wants to be there for the one who saved all their lives, and doesn't understand why the rest of the world treats Danny so badly.Snow falls, and the Far Frozen is beautiful.
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Frostbite
Comments: 61
Kudos: 579
Collections: Finished111





	Blanketed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lynse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynse/gifts).

> i wasnt sure who to gift this to and then lynse gave foolish californian me an hour-long lesson on how snow works and now i owe her my life

Danny loved the Far Frozen.

He honestly hadn't been expecting to. He'd never really liked snow as a kid, and Frostbite's enthusiastic welcome had been kind of overwhelming, the first time around. It was all well and good to joke with Sam and Tucker about Frostbite treating him like a king, but the reality of it was more than a little uncomfortable.

Except— he loved the place. The way jagged peaks of ice made otherworldly colors as they reflected the Ghost Zone's green light, the way snow settled powder-light in his hair and slipped onto his face, the way, for once, the air wasn't suffocating, scalding, didn't make him feel blurry at all, just crisp and so _ awake. _ The way Frostbite and all his people were so, _ so _kind. He wasn't used to that, not from people he was only just getting to know, and it sometimes set his head spinning.

Even after he'd managed to mess up over and over until he'd frozen half the audience, learning his ice powers, they hadn't hated him. Sure, they'd wanted him out of the area, but the next time he had a chance to visit it had become a joke to laugh at together;_ 'Look at you, mighty warrior, defeated by a child new to his powers,' _

_ 'Excuse me, that child defeated Pariah Dark,' _

_ ‘Not with ice he didn’t!’ _ and so on. None of them meant him any harm. It was so _ weird. _

(He was safe in Dora's kingdom, too, but that at least made sense, given she was friends with Sam and the three of them had helped everyone who lived there — uh, resided there — out big time. He hadn't done anything for the Far Frozen. Not directly, anyways. He knew if he said something like that to Frostbite, he'd get told all over again about how defeating Pariah Dark had saved the whole Zone from tyranny, but that didn't mean he'd been thinking about the Far Frozen while punching him. Just Amity Park. Always Amity Park.)

"Great One," said Frostbite, settling down beside him. "You're pensive today."

It kind of scared Danny, how fast he'd gotten used to being called Great One. Not that he had much of a choice, because Frostbite refused to call him anything else and the rest of the Far Frozen took their cues from their leader, but all it had really taken was thinking about it as just another nickname, like ghost child or Phantom or even Danny. If he could rationalize that, though, what else could he— 

He stopped himself there, because that way lay a thought spiral that would eventually lead to him becoming his evil future self and then panicking, and he was having a nice evening. Night. It was probably midnight back home, by now, but you could never really tell in the Ghost Zone. "I guess. I was thinking about how good you guys are to me."

Frostbite constructed a blanket of silky ice and fluffy new snow from thin air, draped it over Danny's shoulders. Danny picked up a corner of it, trying to guess the construction. Snowflakes fluttered off and landed in his lap.

"See, that's what I mean," he said. He brushed off a few more snowflakes to expose an intricate weave made of tiny links of ice. "You just—" He gestured. The blanket moved with him, and he tried to figure out all over again how Frostbite had made fabric out of ice. "For _ me._"

"Of course for you," said Frostbite softly. Snow began to fall from a cloudless sky, muffling everything except the two of them. The Far Frozen never had clouds or storms. Just snow, and the crispest, clearest air Danny had ever breathed. Not that he strictly _ had _ to breathe, as Phantom, but in the Far Frozen he always found himself wanting to. "If nothing else, we all owe you our freedom and our afterlives."

Danny scrunched his face up, not really on purpose. Frostbite always said something like that. And it wasn't that Danny didn't believe him, but— "Doesn't seem to matter, to the rest of the Ghost Zone."

Frostbite placed a hand on Danny's back, so that two fingers rested on his shoulder. That was all that would fit. His hand was too big. He could squash Danny like a tomato if he wanted. But somehow, despite that, it was comforting. 

"Great One," said Frostbite. His voice was still so soft, and there was something horribly sad in it too. "We don't get much news from outside, here. And even we heard of your victory. I can't imagine anyone escaped the knowledge of the Ghost King’s reawakening and his defeat, even the Realms' most isolated ghosts."

Danny wondered why Frostbite was telling him that. Was he trying to be comforting? Danny supposed he’d not met nearly everyone in the Zone, but— 

"You're the first ghost who ever mentioned it to me," he admitted. "And like, I don't want fans, or, or," he waved his hands around, making a face, "stuff like that. But that's why I'm so surprised every time I come here, and you're so nice." He pulled the blanket closer around himself and looked up at Frostbite. "Feels safe, here."

Frostbite squeezed his shoulder. "I'm glad, Great One."

Danny couldn't think of anything to say to that, so he went back to examining the blanket. It sat on his shoulders like silk, cool and pleasant and unmelting. And the craftsmanship was so intricate, so beautiful — ice that _ bent _ — and Frostbite had shaped it in half a thought. Danny wanted to be that good, someday. He didn't know if he would be, but he had to try, to repay the Far Frozen for everything they'd given him and because learning to create with ice was the first time he'd really, truly loved being a ghost since he'd realized he could fly.

Little kid him didn't know what he'd been missing, really. Of course, part of that was little kid him hadn't been basically immune to cold, and absolutely _ had _ disliked being uncomfortable. Between that and all his Christmas-related hangups, it wasn't any wonder he hadn't liked snow. But. Still. He’d been missing out. There wasn’t much out there that beat leaning into the give of a snowbank and curling up for a nap.

Danny laughed. He had to remember to tell Tucker and Sam that he couldn’t get hypothermia anymore, or they’d freak out as soon as winter hit. Probably they'd do all the freaking out for him, because he'd been a little busy when he first realized that the only way cold could hurt him was if it came from his own core, and after that he’d skipped straight to thinking it was awesome. And pretty convenient, for fights. 

Snow fell. Danny stuck out his tongue, catching snowflakes, and wondered why "cold" always meant standoffish and unfriendly. Everyone always thought ice was bad and heat was good, cold was for villains and mean girls and warm was for heroes and being kind. But the people of the Far Frozen didn’t have frozen hearts or whatever. And everyone Danny had ever met with fire hair had been sort of evil. Or at least some kind of a jerk— it wasn’t fair to call Ember the same as evil future him. It was just so peaceful here, in the snow and the ice and the cold. Danny could _ breathe. _

"Frostbite?" wondered Danny. The snow muffled his voice, or maybe he was just speaking quietly. "Do you think this is gonna be my life forever?"

"Hmm?" said Frostbite. He was shaping ice in his lap, the hand not draped over Danny’s shoulder occasionally reaching to grab snowflakes out of the air and add them to whatever he was making. Pale blue light glowed and faded from under his fingers, and he kept putting his arm in the way of Danny seeing what he was working on. That was alright. Danny could wait; Frostbite would probably show him eventually.

“Like,” he explained, “like, always fighting. All the ghosts wanting to get through the portal and be jerks to my town, and running from ghost hunters, and getting my friends in danger, and failing all my tests. D'you think it's always gonna be like that?" Danny paused. "I mean. Not the tests. Hopefully I'll graduate from high school."

Frostbite hummed. “Does it matter?” he said finally. Danny looked up at him. “If things continue as they are. Will you change what you do? Would you stop protecting people, if you knew your life would never get easier?”

“No!” said Danny immediately. His tone was sharp with outrage, because how could he _ imply _— but this was Frostbite, not someone out to mock him. Danny caught himself and smiled up, in apology. 

Frostbite smiled back, kindly, that smile of his that pulled his lips down instead of up but definitely wasn’t a frown. “Then you have your answer, Great One.”

Danny made a face. “Somehow, I was hoping for reassurance.”

“I live in a frozen wasteland, Great One,” said Frostbite. He took his arm off Danny’s shoulder to gesture at the city spread below them, the peaks and the glaciers. “Bracing yourself for the worst is just common sense here.” Both hands were in his lap, now, glowing pale blue again as he made adjustments to his project. “Then, when the best comes, you can greet it with true joy.”

“That why you were so excited to see me, when we crashed here the first time?” joked Danny. A yawn rolled out of his mouth. “Dammit, school tomorrow. I should pro’bly…” He waved his hand around vaguely in the direction of the Fenton Portal. “Home.”

Frostbite’s lip quirked in amusement. “Perhaps,” he said. Danny couldn’t tell what part of what had just come out of Danny’s mouth he was answering. For all he knew it was the yawn.

“Dunno who decided to come through the portal while I’ve been here, too…” muttered Danny. To his dismay, his eyes were drooping. Acknowledging he was tired, a fatal mistake. Made his body remember sleep was a thing. He pulled the ice blanket close around him again. It was so nice and cold.

Then Frostbite reached over with a glowing-blue finger and disintegrated it into loose snowflakes with a touch.

Danny startled, and then scowled. “Hey! What was that for?”

He was already missing the weight of it on his shoulders.

“It would have fallen apart within a few hours, with the amount you move,” said Frostbite. He smiled at Danny’s sleepy offended frown. “Don’t worry, Great One. I have something better for you.”

Danny blinked at him. The snow had stopped falling while they were talking, leaving the whole realm sparkling white and green and the two of them looking like snowmen. Danny couldn’t melt snow with his body temperature anymore. He didn’t consider it a great loss. 

Frostbite made some final adjustments with nimble blue-glowing fingers, and, with dramatic flair, shook out another blanket. It was patterned like a quilt, each square a separate design, and lined with snowflakes that stayed on even with Frostbite waving it around. Danny could stare at it for hours. Forget what Frostbite had made earlier, _ this _ was the most amazing craftsmanship he’d ever seen. 

The suppleness of it, the fifteen million different pieces involved, the art on all the different quilt squares, the way everything stayed together but nothing was stiff… Danny had no idea how the Far Frozen picked their leaders, but right now he would totally believe it was based on who could make the coolest things with ice. And the tiny bit of dignity he still had left at school would never stand up to him calling a _ quilt _cool, but that totally didn’t matter right now.

Frostbite wrapped it around Danny’s shoulders, so that the patterned side faced out and the side with all the snowflakes was soft against his jumpsuit. He buried his face in it. Cozy…

“You should be able to take this one back home with you,” said Frostbite. Danny noted that the blanket glowed a very faint blue. “I wove in enough ectoplasm that it will stand up to the Living World without melting or losing flexibility.”

Danny’s eyes widened. That was— “You really didn’t have to,” he protested. “You really didn’t—” He looked down. One of the squares had a silhouette of the Far Frozen’s city. Another, abstract swirls, like the Ghost Zone’s sky. A snowflake. The jagged edges of a mountain. The blanket was so nice and heavy, a comfortable weight on him. “It’s too nice. You’re too nice to me.”

“Nothing is too nice for you, Great One,” said Frostbite, something rough and desperate and devoted pulling at his voice. Then he put his hand on Danny’s shoulder and his voice was light again. “Besides, us ice cores need to keep our temperatures down, and your home isn’t very well suited to the task.”

“I guess…” Danny blushed and shoved his face back into the blanket. “Thanks, Frostbite,” he mumbled.

Sleepy… But he had to stay awake to fly home.

“Always, Great One,” said Frostbite. Danny didn’t move, face still shoved in the blanket. He felt Frostbite’s hands on him, let them move him around until he was lying on Frostbite’s lap, the blanket wrapped around him like cold air.

“For what it’s worth,” said Frostbite, something certain like permafrost and the sky in his tone, “I don’t think your life will be how it is now forever, Great One.” 

He brushed something — snow, probably — off Danny’s shoulder. Danny leaned into the touch, and mumbled something that probably would have been a snarky response if he’d been more awake. 

“Sleep here, Great One,” said Frostbite, into the silence. “It’s late. I’ll wake you in the morning.”

Cold, and comfortable, and safe to the core of him, Danny’s eyes slipped closed.

**Author's Note:**

> i have an almost terrifying amount of love in my heart for frostbite... hes just,, so nice, and deserved more than like three scenes,, i love him,


End file.
